MEDIA RELEASE: Publicly-employed allied health professionals ratify four-year agreements
Retention a top priority; more than 1,000 vacant allied health positions in Manitoba
March 20, 2025 | Winnipeg, MB – After nearly a year without a current contract, a majority of publicly-employed members of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (MAHCP) voted over the past two days to ratify tentative agreements reached with public health-care employers on March 7, 2025.
Voting opened at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, March 18 and closed at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, March 19.
“This contract was achieved through the resolve of frontline allied health professionals and their bargaining committee, who were willing to go on strike to demand change,” said Jason Linklater, MAHCP President. “It is my hope that the new contract represents the first step in finally addressing chronic shortages of specialized staff and improving health care for Manitobans.”
The new four-year agreements cover Shared Health, Winnipeg-Churchill, and Northern Health Region employers organizations. They include general wage increases of 12.25% over four years (2.5%, 2.75%, 3.0% and 3.0% plus a 1.0% market adjustment = 12.85% compounded) from 2024-2027, consistent with other recent health-care agreements, along with several improvements intended to enhance work-life balance and address workload and health and safety concerns. The new contract also includes a $3.00/hour step adjustment for most classifications; new rural and Northern wage differentials; and wage parity for MAHCP’s paramedics with City of Winnipeg paramedics.
Retention was a top priority for the union in this round of negotiations. Due to allied health professionals’ high degree of specialization, most require years of technical training, and staff are difficult to replace if they leave. Manitoba experienced a net loss of allied health staff in both January and February 2025 in health-care regions employing members represented by MAHCP: Shared Health, Winnipeg-Churchill, and Northern. This was the first two-month streak of net loss since August 2023, under the previous government.
“The new contract is the starting point to stop the bleed and keep more allied health professionals on the job while Manitoba trains and recruits more to fill the thousand vacancies that have built up in recent years,” said Linklater. “Employers must prioritize implementing the contract as quickly as possible before Manitoba loses more specialized allied health staff.”
The union noted that the new contract does not address significant issues affecting retention and recruitment, including much-needed improvements to the Healthcare Employee Benefits Plan, which is not competitive with other Canadian jurisdictions.
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431-323-7499 or email